Working class hero

Be prepared for lashings of nostalgia when the wraps come off the Monaro, a sixties icon in a cutthroat 21st century car market.

23 July 2001Bob Jennings

The rose-coloured reception given to Holden's motor show concept of 1998 will give way to show-me-the-money reality when the real thing arrives in dealerships this summer.

Holden is being coy about how many cars have been built and are being used for pre-production testing, but camouflaged versions have been photographed in action.

What is clear is that the production car will differ significantly from the concept vehicle. Just for a start, it won't have the present two-nostril grille of the present Commodore; rather it will have a slim, single-opening grille, and a unique nose and tail to keep it looking fresh alongside the next two Commodore upgrades.

The Monaro must keep its freshness until 2006 and so will wear a nose that will carry it across the life of the VY Commodore due in September next year, and the VZ which will be its eventual replacement.

Already, Holden reports holding "more than 500" firm orders for the Monaro, although it anticipates that in line with all sports cars and fashion vehicles, there will be a strong initial demand which will taper off as "the emotive heat of the initial release dies down."

There are already "tweaks" planned in the system for upgrades to rekindle the heat during the model's life, and export plans are still being explored, although Holden spokesman John Morrison has ruled out the US as a possible market.

The company might not make a fortune building the car in such limited numbers but what it will do for the brand's image will be priceless.

However, such was the overwhelming reception to the concept vehicle at its surprise unveiling at the Sydney Motor Show in 1998, it would have been difficult for the company not to do the car.

Since that unveiling the project has been fast-tracked, and included the building of a second, left-hand drive version which was air-freighted to the US and displayed at a General Motors world management conference in Detroit.

Already, "bodies in white" (raw, unpainted metal bodies) have come off the end of the production line at Holden's manufacturing plant at Elizabeth, on the northern outskirts of Adelaide, to test the tooling and assembly processes. Some at least have ended their short lives against the concrete barriers at the Lang Lang proving ground undergoing crash testing.

Already, Holden reports holding "more than 500" firm orders for the Monaro, although it anticipates that in line with all sports cars and fashion vehicles, there will be a strong initial demand which will taper off as "the emotive heat of the initial release dies down."

The Holden people are still edgy about how the Monaro will do commercially. It's been something of a mystery since its inception, having been wheeled on to the motor show stand in the strictest secrecy the night before the unveiling, when all other people had completed their own displays and disappeared.

The car was a backroom exercise, done by a group of designers who also worked in secrecy before revealing their work to the Holden hierarchy. Their work hit the nail on the head, and everything else in the Sydney show paled into insignificance. It was a car begging to be built.

As was the case with the original HK Monaro in 1968, it was deceptively simple, being based on the bread and butter Holden platform. Subsequent Monaros followed the same practice.

It's remarkable that the a total of only 55,357 Monaros were built in the first series, the last being a run of 600 LE (limited edition) versions of the HX.

The new Monaro is expected to come in both V8 and supercharged V6 variants wearing Holden and HSV badges.

Holden's marketing department is targeting an entry-level price of around $50,000, while the top HSV version could be as much as $100,000.

According to insiders, the entry-level Monaro will have a supercharged V6, with trim levels similar to that of a Berlina sedan, including four airbags, anti-lock brakes, CD sound system, alloy wheels and velour trim.

The top model in the Holden line-up will be a more expensive, better-equipped V8 producing the same 225kW of peak power as a Commodore SS.

HSV is planning its own versions, starting with an entry level 255kW V8 engine and also being offered with the most potent V8 engine it's built yet, the GTS 300kW Callaway-enhanced version of the Chevrolet 5.7-litre.

Holden is hoping for as big an impact for the new car as the original had in 1968. The HK model, designed under the eye of American Joe Schemansky, was actually drawn by John Schinella, recalls former Holden design chief Leo Pruneau.

However, unlike the new Monaro, the old one was available at a budget price, the cheapest of a number of variations coming with the "taxi pack" 161 engine, three-speed column gearshift and drum brakes all round.

In those early days, development tended to be done on the run. Holden engineer and rally driver Bob Watson was in charge of sorting the handling of the original Monaro, and there were some frightening incidents during development of the powerful, Chevrolet 327 V8-powered GTS model for the 1968 Bathurst. Tailshafts on at least a couple of the cars broke at high speed causing spectacular crashes, and gearboxes also tended to fly apart.

Watson admitted later that the big-engined Monaro was always under-braked, the 327 having only disc front brakes, with drums at the rear. So did the subsequent 350 V8.

Nevertheless, the Monaro GTS 327 won the 500-mile (800km) race at Bathurst in the year of its introduction with Bruce McPhee and Barry Mulholland sharing the driving. The following year an even more powerful 350 cubic inch (5.7-litre) V8 was introduced, and once again, there was a Bathurst victory, this time in the hands of rally ace Colin Bond, partnered by another rally driver, Tony Roberts.

The racing activities were all very underhand from Holden's point of view; General Motors had a long-standing, world-wide ban on motorsport competition, although it had turned a blind eye to rallying, in which Holden had been active before the Monaro program.

However, Holden's marketing boss, John Bagshaw, reckoned that circuit racing was a more obvious way in which to trump the previously dominant Ford, and through his dealers organised the obviously effective Holden Dealer Team, under the direction of former Ford competitions boss (and former Bathurst winner) Harry Firth.

The Monaro was replaced as the racing weapon by the six-cylinder, triple- carburettor XU-1 Torana, and gradually the sporting emphasis moved away from the Monaro, contributing to its ultimate demise.

Sharper market research should ensure that Holden is able to better anticipate buyer trends than in the old days of gut feeling and intuition.

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